Latest posts by michael wilson (see all)
- JORDAN RIVER - February 5, 2019
- Inspired Art - August 2, 2018
- Waiting for Inspiration - July 31, 2018
- The Bridge between Painting and Photography - July 31, 2018
There was a period in my own painting where I felt stymied for lack of a particular theme in my work. I felt I needed a very clear idea to begin, good preparatory drawings and a distinct theme that would pervade the painting. Consequently the canvas glared back white and cold on the easel. A grand theme, a poignant idea was typically beyond my grasp. Meanwhile I wanted to get on with the process of painting – I became willing to allow the accident in abstract painting.
The accident in abstract painting, was fortunately discovered for me at the age of 58. It is an essential element discussed by abstract artists such as Gerhardt Richter in his book – the need to balance un-planned accidental events with an over-arching purpose. He admits to relying too heavily on the accidental effects. When I began to move from thematic, representational figurative art to abstract art I experienced a new-found thrill of creativity. This thrill of painting, this joy has not abated. I have a new and heightened sense for pure color. Curiously all the formal applications I learned at school and by personal instructors still proved helpful – those of balance in a painting, of movement, of the placement of forms and even primary, basic color theory.
I began to understand why Richter experienced a degree of reliance on the accidental. For me it serves as a starting point in a painting. There is a feeling I want to express. It is undefined so I start by applying pigment to the surface. It is an intuitive process – a process which Jackson Pollack made famous. It is not tightly conceived and meticulously drawn out like an Andrew Wyeth painting. Abstract painting is about expression of color and form. Color and how color defines form takes precedence over any particular concept or theme. Remarkably patterns begin to emerge, inner emotions are discovered and we discover how potent color can be when we are sensitive to what is emerging on the canvas. For the artist, this is a meditation. A balance begins to emerge between those accidental displays of color and form and between my own personal judgement of how they should be placed. There is a dance between those two dichotomies, an energy that turns an accidental effect in to a dynamic composition. Kandinsky often called his paintings simply Composition 20 or 22 and so on because ultimately we are taking the initial thrust, those wonderful accidents and then consciously creating a composition that best defines the direction we are wanting to express. That direction might never have been discovered had it not been for the initial thrust of the exerted accidental effect.